


Beginnings

by Chiropterix



Series: The ARK Generations Saga [1]
Category: ARK: Survival Evolved
Genre: Ark Survival Evolved, Ark is the best game, Dinosaurs, I have honestly no idea what to put here, I just really like dinosaurs okay?, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-19 22:04:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16543151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chiropterix/pseuds/Chiropterix
Summary: A saga of the various ARKs, many generations after Helena and Rockwell. A group of young descendants who thrive making their living off of the land alongside their friends and many amazing creatures. A brutal struggle against a warlike foe clinging to a violent pastime.This is the tale that began it all. A young girl who, out of desperation, finds herself allied with an unlikely friend. Their story is the precursor to all of the stories.





	1. Fear

**Author's Note:**

> This is literally my very first piece of published fiction and this is terrifying okay? But I wanted to share my love of ARK with my gaming community and share the adventures I have in my mind when I'm not in game with them. I hope that this turns into much, much more than I expect. 
> 
> I welcome any and all criticisms; I am un-beta'd and not nearly as elegant with my writing as I hope to be. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy <3

Fear is a strange, pervasive thing.

 

You never know how it will affect the body until you are face to face with death, on the verge of collapse or at the end of your sanity. Fight or flight. Berserker or coward. Fear brings out the basest of your instincts, exposes who you are beneath the flesh and strips away all pretenses.

As the girl lay face down in the mud she wasn’t sure which she was yet. But she was afraid. The rough hempen ropes binding her wrists to her ankles were tearing at her skin, the blood soaking into the back of her shirt as she struggled to alleviate the strain on her back at the uncomfortable angle. The moon was rising, affording her a limited view of the campsite she was being kept at. Sweat stung her eyes as she peered around at the men sitting beside the small cook fire a short distance away. They largely ignored her, focused on pulling strips of meat from the carcass spitted over the flames. Her stomach cramped and rebelled, it had been at least a day since she last ate, but seeing their meal wasn’t making her hungry. Her tears and screams had long dried up since that same morning when a squad of armed men had broken down the door of her crude wooden hut and taken her captive. Her sole companion, a sweet baby dilophosaurus only 3 months out of the egg, had been shot twice in the head, her body slung over the back of a heavily muzzled carnotaurus.  
The girl choked on bile that rose involuntarily as she watched them cleaning the carcass of her only friend. One of the men, easily recognizable with a huge scar marring the right side of his face and sporting a grisly, unkempt beard, glanced at her in irritation before rising. He grabbed a strip of meat from the cooked dilo and stomped up to her, crouching down and holding the greasy meat against her tightly clenched lips.  
“Aren’t you hungry sweetheart? Don’t try to deny it, not when I was nice enough to bring you some of our own food.”  
She turned her head downward into the muck in an effort to get away from the horrendous offering. He grumbled and stood up to deliver a kick to the side of her head.  
“Dumb little bitch. That’s the least meal you’ll be offered until we get to base. We’ll see how stubborn you are then.”  
Her ears rang, her empty stomach churned, and her heart ached. The girl’s vision spun and doubled as she tried and failed to remain awake.

The next morning she regained consciousness as the same man heaved her up by her arms still bound behind her back. She couldn’t restrain the scream that came out as her shoulders pulled nearly out of their sockets. The man cuffed her again over the head and threw her over the back of an armored equus. She blinked dizzily as she surveyed the camp, now broken down and packed onto their animals. The fires were out and the soldiers mounted and ready to go. The girl’s throat felt like it was on fire and her lips were cracked and bleeding. She lifted her head up enough to see where they were, though it would likely do her little good. She had been lost when they had found her house on the beach just as she was lost now in the depths of the jungle. The horse she was on began slowly moving along with the caravan and she hung her head again. Heavy footsteps approached her and she cracked an eye to see a large red-haired man staring down at her. He surveyed her condition and then turned to her primary captor with irritation.  
“I don’t give a fuck how difficult she’s been. We’ve barely anything to show for the last raid and no captives to speak of besides this scrawny kid. You bloody her again before we get her to the city and I’ll let you explain it to the boss.”  
The bearded man gave a menacing grunt and mounted his carno. The red-haired man uncorked his water skin and held it to her mouth with an annoyed and apathetic expression on his face. She pulled greedily at the spout and drank two large mouthfuls before he yanked the skin back and hung it at his belt. He then moved on without speaking and she fell back against the saddle, painful and tired.  
That day they didn’t stop in the afternoon as they had previously. She heard the group talking about making it home before nightfall and they prodded their creatures and pack animals even faster as the sun began to drop from its zenith. Twice during the day she had been set down from the equus to relieve herself and drink some water, but she still refused to eat any of the smoked meat they offered her. She wouldn’t risk it. 

They were ascending a narrow cliff ledge near dusk when the dying light caught something shiny up on the mountain and flashed in her eyes; there she saw the behemoth metal gate emerging before them. Her dread, her fear, deepened to a numb terror when that gate closed behind her.  
They unloaded her like the rest of their cargo and she was placed in an empty stockade and shackled to a splintery post surrounded by moldy thatch, her arm restraints cut and re-bound in front of her this time. Signs of other human life in the stall were evident but the naked footprints were old and the smell of unwashed bodies faint. She was alone. A few hours after being deposited there the red-haired man approached and held out to her some cooked roots and bread on a slab. After a cautious pause she grabbed the food as quickly as her restraints would allow and leaned down to eat ravenously. When the slab was empty he once again offered her water and left without saying a word when she was sated. The food went a long way in waking her up and steeling her nerve. She stood up and took time to observe her surroundings. She was under an old wooden roof that covered the earth floor of the stocks. The buildings nearest to her on either side were also made of wood, but some farther away were stone and masonry. A tall metal wall surrounded the city as far as she could see and large groups of men walking in formation periodically patrolled the streets in the darkness. A single torch served as her light source and it allowed her to see abruptly that someone was staring at her from the shadows of the overhang. He walked towards her, the hateful man with the beard and scar, his glowering stare making her quaver again. He stopped a few breaths away from her and spoke in a low voice,  
“You’ve seen me made a fool of on the road, by that ginger fuck. I won’t have you bandying that about to whoever wants to buy you tomorrow, so you’ll be coming with me instead. I made a deal with the auctioneer and paid well enough for him to forget we brought you with us.”  
He closed the gap between them and gripped her chin cruelly, turning her eyes up to meet his.  
“You’re just a little shit now, good for nothing but light labor. But don’t worry, you’ll age up. I haven’t taken a wife yet and nobody cares what happens to slaves once they’re sold. If you can survive the work I put you to then maybe you’ll earn a place in my bed eventually. If you’re lucky.”  
He smirked to himself and laughed when he saw fresh tears leaving tracks in the dirt caked to her face. He let go of her face and walked away again out of the torchlight without another word.

The girl didn’t sleep. She sat with her back to the post and observed the activity around her and thought furiously. And the more she thought, the more her fear morphed into anger and purpose. This city didn’t seem to sleep. She could see throngs of people making their way to and fro along the unpaved streets. A few women were glimpsed but mostly more men in dull and dented armor. Occasionally the ground shook as an angry carno or rex was led down the boulevard, covered in metal plates and looking vicious. A loud hammering had begun in the stone building across the street from her stocks; what must be the smithy was fired up and a man wrapped in oiled leather was folding metal into weapons. She wasted some time watching him work and was distracted enough that when the accident happened it took her by surprise. A young carno, perhaps freshly tamed by the way he was throwing his bound muzzle around trying to smash the men holding his ropes, had been led too close to the smith. The ringing noise and the hot sparks had caused the beast to panic. He kicked his legs out to knock down his captors and charged headfirst into the shop. The poor blacksmith barely had any warning when two tons of horned- tipped rage crashed into his forge and tore his anvils up from the foundations. Wood and metal and bits of stone flew in every direction as chaos consumed the street. Nobody even thought to glace across the street. If they had they would have seen the now empty handcuffs, opened crudely by a shard of sharp metal jammed into the locking mechanism and splattered with drops of fresh blood.

The girl couldn’t believe her luck when a metal filing had skid all the way across the street to her stall. She immediately reached with her feet to grab it and made bloody mess of her fingers wrestling it into position so she could free herself. She constantly glanced up at the madness in front of her, certain someone would look up and see, but she was soon loosed from the cuffs and rushing to the rear of the stockade. The wall at the back was high but it didn’t reach all the way to the roof, allowing her to grab a hold of the wood planks and squeeze through the gap at the top. She was on her feet and sprinting down the pitch black alleyway as fast as her cramped and tired legs could carry her. She spent nearly an hour navigating the city, dashing from one darkened archway to another and making every effort to avoid detection. Her heart hammered and sweat made her roughspun clothing cling to her skin and itch. The houses began to fall back and she suddenly had some open ground to cover that appeared to be a training field. On the far side she could hear the roars and screeches of animals as they were corralled and caged and trained. The field wasn’t lit but she slowed and crawled the length of it just in case a sharp-eyed watchman happened to spy her.  
When she had navigated over to the pens she let herself stop and breathe for a moment. On the other side of a short metal fence was a sea of carnivores and pack animals in varying methods of restraint. Overhead the air thundered as several massive wyverns were flown in by their riders, and she was momentarily paralyzed by terror again. She had only ever seen dragons from a distance but stories from her childhood of people being cooked alive or melted in acid had given her a healthy fear of the creatures. It seemed like it would be only too easy for one to pluck her from between the pens and swallow her whole as simply as they would a skinned rabbit. She wasted even more time sitting in the filth beside a cage housing a sleeping Rex, waiting for the wingbeats to cease as the beasts were brought down and tethered for the night. Slowly she forced herself to move again, sliding as close as she dared to the pens and keeping her head low. It was like a maze here; she stumbled across the same raptor twice before she finally risked climbing a railing high enough to see where she might be able to squeeze through a gate. It didn’t look promising, the wall seemed intact all the way around and the huge gates were heavily guarded. These warlike clans were clearly practiced at keeping people in as well as out. She moved to climb back down, but not soon enough. Someone in a nearby pen had spotted her on the railing and, not recognizing her and seeing her filthy clothing, shouted an alarm to the nearest watchmen.  
One again the girl was running so hard that her heart was threatening to pound out of her ribcage. She had enough of a headstart to keep her pursuers confused by weaving around the large pens. She even dared to cut through a few of the larger ones, the bars spaced to keep in the rexes they contained but still wide enough for her to slip through before their occupants knew that potential food had passed so close.  
She heard the sounds and shouts of the hunting party fall behind and gradually fade away as she wove deeper into the morass of animals and metal. She noticed the creatures in these particular cages and didn’t dare cut through any of them; these housed the untamed dinosaurs and monsters that were there to be trained. Feral and furious eyes watched her from all angles as she carefully avoided claws and teeth. All at once there was a clamor right next to her, someone had seen her run this way! She could see the glint of armor in the moonlight just on the other side of her row of pens. She was out of time and out of luck. In desperation she squeezed into the nearest cage, observing even in haste that its immense occupant was unmoving and unresponsive. Perhaps even dead. She dove behind the scaly mass and abruptly clamped a hand over her mouth to stop the scream when a single eye the size of her head opened and stared at her from inches away. The hulking animal remained still but she could see its pupils constricting in fury. She stayed frozen, the sounds of the soldiers fading again as they hurried onwards through the night. The eye before her blazed orange and yellow like a molten pool. It wasn’t until it lifted its head up slightly and the wings rustled that she knew what was in this cage.  
It was a wyvern.


	2. Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We are introduced to a friend?

When moments passed and she wasn’t devoured it became clear that the wyvern was chained so tightly it couldn’t easily maneuver, even to reach her. Thick straps of leather bound its maw shut and smoke issued furiously from wide and blowing nostrils. She sank onto her rear and risked a look around to be sure no humans were in sight before scooting, inch by inch, towards the side of the cage. The fiery eyes continued to hold her gaze and she had difficulty looking away as she fit herself through the bars again and left the cage, somehow intact. Her focus re-formed once more on escape. She stood in the aisle and quickly tallied up her odds, frequently glancing at the shackled creature behind her who was still staring directly at her. Her odds were absolute shit. Now that they knew she was out of her bonds the soldiers wouldn’t stop until she was recaptured. Her bruised cheek throbbed at the thought and she rested her head against a cool metal bar. From where she was she could see no easy way to scale the metal walls and the gates looked like even a jerboa wouldn’t be able to scurry beneath them. A distant shout had her backing once again against the wyvern’s cell and she turned to stare back at it.  
The creature was huge even coiled up and bound as it was, its wings chained so tightly across its back that there were open sores and dried blood crusting the scales. She rubbed her wrists in unconscious sympathy and kept trying to plot a way out that wouldn’t get her killed. All the while that one eye burned a hole into her.  
The girl, stressed out and exhausted, sat down just inside the cage so she couldn’t be seen from the alleyway. She stared at the dragon. Stared hard at its bound muzzle and rusted chains and roping lacerations. Stared into that furious eye.  
Her hand lifted almost without conscious thought. She crept towards that giant head and began to murmur nonsense quietly at it. The dragon rumbled angrily but she swallowed her fear and kept moving until her hand was hovering over the point of its snout. She spoke to it.  
“I was told once that dragons are as intelligent as they are violent. That they can understand and listen to humans.”  
The dragon regarded her with silent, angry fixation. The smoke that had been curling into the air above the wide nostrils ceased. It was listening, she realized with a start. She carefully cleared her dry throat;  
“I’m a prisoner here, just like you are. And I would have us both freed, but I need you to help me. And I need you to not kill me. Please.”  
No response, but then she hadn’t really expected one from the animal. She gently placed her hand fully against its nose and felt a leathery hide so hot she nearly drew back in alarm. But she kept it there and spoke again, more to calm herself than the dragon. She talked to help herself go through with the insane idea forming in her desperate brain.  
“I’m going to unchain you, okay? But you have to remain quiet and still for as long as you can. Quiet and still. Please.”  
She slid her hand up across its muzzle and over the armored head until she reached the first chain at the top of its neck. She followed it by touch to where it was bolted to the collar and carefully toggled the bar at the end through the mounting until it swung free. The dragon remained still. She freed the other two chains down the long muscular neck. She struggled with the bindings on the vast wings, trying to make as little noise as possible and not to hurt the poor thing further. The dragon turned his head just enough to continue watching her work. The legs were shackled with large iron rings that she wasn’t sure how to remove so she continued instead onto the last few chains binding the tail.  
The moment the last one fell to the ground the wyvern suddenly rose from the ground, the metal pen rattling as it shifted it’s weight. It towered over her until the head scraped the top of the cage some 50 feet above her. It tested its freedom by stretching its wings wide, the still-shackled feet rattling loudly and causing her to jump. She had left the leather straps across its muzzle out of caution but she watched in mute horror as the dragon used a clawed digit at the bend of its wing to dexterously tear the leather like it was paper. It took a moment to open its jaw wide and close it with a snap several times before focusing its attention on her. That huge head slid down until she was looking once again directly into those intense eyes, now colored a more golden amber than fiery orange. She talked to it with her voice shaking,  
“T-thank you for not eating me right away. Or at least not yet. I need to find a way to get rid of those last few chains.”  
She moved to lean down toward its legs when she was suddenly swept aside with a crushing blow from its tail. The dragon reared up and seemed to ignore her as it nosed the corners of the tall cage. It whined in irritation and slammed its bony head at the bars, crashing against the metal with a cacophonous sound that reverberated in her ears. The girl groaned as she levered herself up from the floor and began to panic again, there was no way that racket was going unnoticed. She raised her hands high above her head and tried to draw the wyvern’s attention as quietly as possible.  
“Shhh shh no please stop, please!! Please they’ll hear you and neither of us will get free, you big idiot!”  
The now angry wyvern turned its head towards her again and she could see the wide jaws slowly gape open to reveal row upon row of razor sharp fangs as long as her forearm. From deep in the throat a shimmering, glowing heat seemed to creep up towards its mouth. The girl didn’t think, she simply acted. She dove wildly for the clawed feet beneath its belly and began wrestling with the bolted chains, hands not knowing what to do and shaking violently. The dragon dropped onto its winged forelegs over her and snaked its head around to watch, maw now closed but smoke filling the air. She didn’t dare look. Quickly she slowed her movements and focused more on the shackles; she could see there was a bolt through the rings holding the cuffs together and a thick rusty pin holding that bolt in place. She had to get the pin out, but it wouldn’t budge when she squeezed with all the force her bloodied hands could muster. She glanced up wildly before taking the chain and striking the bolt against the floor, trying to dislodge the pin.  
With dismay she once again heard the shouts returning, this time honing in on the unaccustomed noised she and the dragon were making. She nearly froze again when a large head roughly jostled her from the rear as if to encourage her onward. A few more sharp bangs and the pin was out, bolt whipped out of the rings and the shackle thrown open. The wyvern immediately stepped out of the restraint, but shocked her when it then lowered itself to the ground and curled up once again as if still tethered and unconscious. She was left standing in the open when the torches came into view carried by nearly a dozen armed men. They quickly spotted her and surrounded the pen, eyeing the dragon warily but without too much concern. She could see that the soldier directly on front of the cage doors was the red-haired man from the caravan. He spoke in a low voice to his companions,  
“Don’t get nervous on me now, someone bring me a lever and get this damned door opened. No, don’t worry about him, he hasn’t had food in over a week. See how he just lays there? Must be too weak to even eat the stupid wretch when she crawled inside.”  
As he was handed a long iron bar he turned to address her directly,  
“You might have been lucky to get this far kid but you’re luck just ran out. You’re no better than rex food now.”  
He jammed the end of the iron bar under the lock and have a mighty wrench upwards. The snap of breaking metal made the girl jump and she quickly backed up until she was pressed against the unresponsive dragon still lying prone behind her. They slowly opened the heavy metal door and the red-haired man stepped through now holding coils of that hated hempen rope from his hand. The other was open to her.  
“Don’t be foolish and come away from that half-dead beast, your fate with us will be far less painful than if he wakes up.”  
At those words she felt the bulk under her finally shift and its- no, HIS head quickly rose up from the body, weaving upwards like a dancing cobra. It took the men at the door less than a second to realize that this dragon was untethered and unmuzzled. The red haired man backed up with a shout and attempted to slam the gate on both of them once again; but the lock wouldn’t snap. He had busted the mechanism when he opened it. The air around the girl crackled with sudden heat and the gurgling roar behind her was the only warning she had to hit the floor as the entire squad was bathed in searing hot flames. She could feel her skin burn and blister in the heat and she senselessly crawled farther under the now standing dragon as it continued to incinerate everything before them. She could hear the screams of agony over the thunder of the flames pouring out of its throat and she flinched at the horrific sound.  
The air was almost cold when the dragon suddenly ceased its barrage with the loud snap of his jaws. Her face smarted fiercely as she uncovered her head from under her arms and peered out through the suffocating and sickening smoke. Nothing remained but piles of charred armor and clothing, and the immense wyvern towering over her. He moved forward and with a powerful shove the door flew off of its warped hinges and crashed into the pen opposite them, the long-snouted carnivore inside not daring to even make a growl at them. He took a few seconds to orient himself; the sun was just brightening the eastern sky and the dim light made depth difficult to judge. The girl sat holding her burned arms in a daze until he made to move forward out of the pen and into the open. She forced herself to her feet and limped after him, he didn’t spare her a glace but searched for the widest gap between the pens, ignoring the shouts of more men gathering in the distance. She struggled to keep pace and began to get frantic when he levered open his large wings and made several flaps to limber up.  
At once he even lifted briefly from the ground as his strokes gained power and speed. She couldn’t help but yell out,  
“Wait please, wait!”  
She wasn’t even sure what she was asking but it was enough to make the dragon pause and turn back to peer at her impatiently. Before she could utter another sound a rear leg shot out and gripped her forcefully around her midsection, her arms hanging uselessly through his clawed toes and her feet kicking and dangling. A horrendous sharp pain pierced her left side but there was nothing she could do but cry out. Without further concern and with a tremendous leap they were airborne, clearing the still-smoking cages and out of crossbow distance within moments. The cool air helped to dry the sweat from her skin and with some deep and grateful breaths she slowly cleared her head and her lungs in an attempt to stay aware of their surroundings. She stared behind them at the activity they had left in the city; large dinosaurs were moving through the streets and shouts could still faintly be heard. The ground was falling away at a nauseating rate and the girl clung as well as she could to the feet clenched around her. She tried to shift away from the stabbing pain in her side but couldn’t turn enough to see what it was; she assumed the sharp talons had something to do with it. As they put more distance between them and the city she started to feel hopeful. For all she knew the dragon could be flying her to some lonely peak to eat her alive, but for some reason she doubted it. There was nothing left for her back at her demolished hut but bloodstains and smashed furniture, she wouldn’t regret never returning.

The sun was fully above the horizon now and directly in front of them, they were heading straight east and gaining momentum. She couldn’t see the wyvern’s head from her spot beneath his belly so she didn’t bother trying to talk to him. The sun shone into her eyes and she looked behind them to relieve the sting. The settlement was no longer visible and she almost sagged in relief before a speck on the edge of the sky caught her eye. It had to have been an argentavis, or maybe even a quetz, so large was the flyer. But as it grew closer she could see it was no bird but instead another pursuing wyvern, gaining quickly. The fire wyvern above hadn’t adjusted his course so she assumed he had yet to notice. She pounded with her fist on the side of his foot urgently. For a heart-stopping moment he loosened his hold on her before gripping her body again and taking the time to tilt his head to the side. She knew immediately that he had seen the threat because his wings abruptly clamped to his side and he dove at a steep angle down away from the clouds. The dragon behind them mimicked the maneuver and was steadily closing the gap. She could tell that the beast was nearly twice the size of the one carrying her; an adult with jet black body with indigo wings. The sharply pointed snout and finned eye ridges gave away its breed, a lightning wyvern. Her guts tightened reflexively with a new surge of fear.  
She could now see the rider leaning over those huge shoulders, one hand gripping a huge crossbow and the other the ridge of the saddle. He wore black armor that covered every inch of his body and a full-faced helmet with a long slit over his eyes. The helmet was decorated with spikes that she identified as teeth from some large carnivore. All of this detail was easy to discern as they pulled closer; and she could do nothing but watch and tremble. The rider pulled from a leather sling a long barbed arrow and with one hand slid it along the sights of the crossbow and pulled back the firing lever. The girl pounded again on the fire dragon’s leg and he pulled up from his steady dive slightly and began to slide back and forth in the air to avoid both the weapon and the needle-like teeth only a few lengths from his tail. She heard the sharp twang of the crossbow even through the gale created by the pair of wings. It fell far to the left as her dragon swung right and flapped upward to gain altitude.  
She could see the mistake in this instantly; they were directly over the rider and an easy target. Even as she shouted a warning another bolt was launched from the weapon and punched right through a wing membrane beside her. The resulting bellow was deafening and hot blood sprayed her face as her wyvern flailed in pain. The armored rider quickly readied another shot and she continued to hammer her bruised fist against his foot in frenzied sympathy. Somehow he righted himself and she could see his head duck to the side to stare their harassers. He let loose a cloud of flames that did little but cloud the air behind them and took the momentary reprieve to again dive down towards the trees. The lightning was close on his tail when he suddenly opened both wings as wide as he could and stalled in midair. The larger, faster dragon had to swerve violently away to avoid a collision and she could swear she could hear a shout from its rider as they swerved past. As the pursuing pair careened to the left her dragon lashed out with his jaws like a flash and snapped the distant edge of the Lightning’s wing, completely severing it at the fourth joint and tearing away the entire membrane beneath it. The bigger dragon let out a scream that sounded like metal sliding across metal and plummeted immediately downward, unable to do more than somewhat stabilize its flight as a spray of bright red blood followed them down. The helmeted rider was kicking his mount with spiked heels but nothing was going to keep that dragon in the air any longer.  
The girl and the fire wyvern rested on the swells of warm air rising from the humid jungle below for several minutes. She could hear his great lungs heaving like a bellows and she feared in his exhaustion he might drop her. But after a moment he tiredly began to flap his large wings and continued his previous path eastward.


	3. Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A girl tries to get her shit together.

The girl woke abruptly to the sensation of falling only a few seconds before her body hit the water. The shock of it caused her to gasp and inhale the brackish liquid and for a few moments she contorted under the surface, disoriented and unable to breathe. Her hand broke through to the air above and she surged upwards, quickly realizing that the pond was only a few feet deep when her feet stuck fast into the mud. She tried to suck in oxygen desperately and her lungs burned as she coughed and hacked to clear her airways, vision swimming and head pounding. Disoriented, lungs burning,, she waded to the bank and slowly crawled out onto the damp earth. Her sore stomach heaved and the girl vomited bile and water, afterwards making minimal effort to slump over on her side away from her mess. A few more deep and rasping breaths, legs shifting gently with the current and head cushioned on the loamy ground. She swiped an arm across her face to help clear her vision, a green and unremarkable humid forest forming around her. She was beginning to come around to an actual thought when the sound of a muted splash behind her caused her to instinctively freeze. She carefully turned her head and craned her neck to look.

On the other side of the creek was the brown and red wyvern. He was sprawled on the ground much like herself with his huge horned head slung low to the water as he sucked in huge mouthfuls. She could swear she saw the water level drop as he drank his fill. She kept extremely still as he sated himself, caution warning her that regardless of where they had just come from that he was still a dangerous and wild animal that could easily rend her in two with a single bite. She tensed anew as he wearily lumbered to his feet and crossed the pond in a single awkward stride, holding in a cry when he simply walked right over her and continued onward into the surrounding forest with purpose. She let out an exhausted, gusting breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. It wasn’t a few moments before she heard the loud squeal of some unfortunate creature and she allowed herself to relax further. She let her head sink back onto her arms and might have eventually fallen asleep had a fish not brushed against her leg, sending her slowly scuttling fully out of the water with a grumpy yelp.   
It dawned on her just how weak she was as it took all of her energy to crawl over to and lean back against the nearest tree. Extremely weak, and her body felt as though she had been flayed alive, particularly the injury on her side. It had been almost three days since she had last eaten and she was most likely suffering from blood loss. She recalled the flight to this place as she gingerly lifted the tatters of her shirt to see the ugly wound on her right abdomen, caused by the wyvern’s talon as she had guessed. The blood was no longer flowing freely but the wound was already viciously inflamed and seeping fluids, forcing her to have to peel the fabric away with a pained gasp and causing the wound to bleed anew.  
The girl sagged a bit in defeat; if the wyvern didn’t decide to kill her then this gash likely would. She listlessly looked around, for what she wasn’t sure since she seemed to have trouble focusing, and eventually laid eyes on some familiar plants on the opposite side of the pond. She could see heavy pale blue berries weighing down each branch, and even though her too-empty stomach cramped at the thought she forced herself to stand and limp over to them. She sat as comfortably as she could and ate handfuls of the juicy azulberries without much enthusiasm, having to choke back the urge to vomit again at the intrusion into her system. She laid down after a small amount was consumed and let her body slowly remember how to process food, eating tiny portions at a time as the internal pain receded. She was glad that these were the variety of berry that had been available; azulberries were moist enough to take away the edge of her thirst and allowing her the luxury of ignoring the murky pond water for now. She had no cooking implements to boil water or even the energy to start a fire and she didn’t like the thought of drinking from an unknown source in her condition. The hot midday sun did little but sap her strength more and she scooted as far under the bushes as possible to find reprieve. A few more handfuls, juice running down her arm and sticking to her chin and neck, and she found herself dozing off.

Her nap was fitful and uncomfortable as the sun moved across the sky and to the horizon, seeming to reach under the foliage just to find and bother her. She groaned and rolled her back to the offensive heat, gasping as she put pressure on her injured side and quickly returning to her prone position looking up at the sky. She was more awake and alert now at least, her stomach protesting less as she pulled down another couple mouthfuls of berries. She tilted her head forward and scanned the forest out of habit. She could see to her left that the wyvern had returned and was sprawled out in the sun a short distance away with his wings spread out to absorb the heat. He looked to be very deeply asleep; she watched as his large ribcage swelled up and down as he breathed deeply, and she noticed gladly that his stomach was swollen from whatever hunting he’d done. The girl levered herself upright on her elbows and was grateful when her head swam only a little, nevertheless taking it slow as she climbed to her feet and walked over to the water. She eyed the stream again with trepidation for a few minutes while she pondered, resisting thirst again as she squared her shoulders and shuffled off cautiously in the direction that seemed most downhill, following the water. Glancing back at her dubious yet only companion she stooped and rooted around in the leaf litter until her hand found a sizeable stone that fit well enough in her palm. She used the sharpest edge of it to gouge marks in the trees that she passed, less concerned with discretion than with finding her way back in unfamiliar territory.   
She had to travel for nearly an hour before the composting forest floor began to turn sandy. The afternoon light was brighter ahead as the trees thinned out and she could hear the gentle crashing of waves on a beach. Thank goodness, she thought. It had been a safe bet at least; in this territory landmasses mostly consisted of narrow islands divided by rivers and then eventually surrounded by a vast ocean. The girl was lucky that they hadn’t flown further inland. She paused before emerging out into the open, checking thoroughly that there were no carnivores or people to be seen before making a beeline for the shore. A small flock of Ichthyornis were lazily gliding high above her, chattering and cawing at each other placidly and ignoring the goings on below. The only dinosaurs in sight were a troop of oviraptors dashing ahead of the waves as they sought out mussels and crabs in the damp sand. Far, far out to sea she could see the vast drifting shaped of Pelagornis hunting their deep water prey.   
Limbs heavy with fatigue she doggedly continued onward, not sure how she had managed this much exertion so far. The tropical water felt wonderful as she waded in, right up until it reached her waist and she hissed loudly as it came into contact with her injury and stung fiercely. But she determinedly continued deeper and finally stood far enough in that the ocean lapped at her armpits. The current tugged at her legs and she had to kick a little to maintain her balance as she stood there for several minutes, steeling her resolve. She lifted her arms to pull the sodden remains of her shirt over her head and scrubbed at it with her fists in the water until the ruined material was as clean as it was going to get. She wrapped the cloth material around her arm as she ducked her head under the surface and scrubbed hard with her fingertips at her burned and patchy hair. She was made aware of the bruises on her head as she scrubbed and avoided the largest contusion on her temple where she had been kicked, touching it made her head spin alarmingly and this wasn’t the place to pass out. Once her scalp was sore from the abuse she waded back to the shallows until she was waist-deep and looked down her naked torso and got her first unfettered look at the talon wound. 

The salt water had moistened the dried blood and scabbed tissue and she grimaced again at how red and hot the affected site was. But the obvious signs of blood poisoning weren’t evident at least, and she could already tell that the briny water was doing its job. She unwrapped her shirt and carefully tore it into as many sections as she could, saving the longest straps by draping them around her neck and wrapping the remaining scraps in her hand. Without looking this time she brought her hand to her side and hesisted only for a moment before beginning to wash the edges of the gash as firmly as she could manage; it was so tender that the pain shot like lightning bolts up her side and made her cry out as she continued cleansing. Once the agony was unbearable she peeked down and was satisfied to see that the wound, although raw and bleeding again, was largely cleared of debris. Accustomed now to the sting of the salt water the waves felt almost soothing to the affected area.   
She stood there for a while to half-float and recuperate, observing the beach and searching for resources she could carry back to that pond. The sun was nearing the ocean horizon and she ignored the residual throbbing of her side to reach down for a handful of sand, proceeding to scrub the rest of herself as clean as she could manage.

Eventually the fading light forced the girl to amble back to shore, pausing as she felt her foot come in contact with something large wedged in the sand of the shoal. She reached down hopefully and lifted out of the water half of an intact clamshell that was nearly two finger-lengths deep and wider than her two splayed hands. She sighed relief; this shell was now the most useful thing she possessed. She rinsed the sand from it as she left the ocean and allowed herself a few moments to air dry as she surveyed the treeline before her. She carefully placed her clamshell on the beach, tucked the ragged remains of her shirt into it, and proceeded to look for sharper implements that would pass for tools. In the end her best solution was to find some large rocks that had fallen from a stone outcropping that emerged from the forest very near the path she had taken to reach the ocean. It took several tries of striking them against each other before she had a shard that was serviceable enough as a crude blade. She stripped browning palm leaves from some dying trees that had toppled onto the sand and used the sharpest edge of her new tool to reduce the fronds to long fibers that she kept spooled out and wrapped around her hands. She then trotted far enough into the jungle to find the nearest hardwood tree and scraped some dried bark from its trunk, wrapping that bark loosely in the palm fibers until she had three rough balls each nearly the size of a coconut (which she would kill for, incidentally, though it seemed this stretch of beach was cruelly devoid of any coconut trees). She returned and set them in her shell before proceeding to a young patch of cane that she had spied from the water growing out from under the forest proper. She hacked about six of them from the stand and returned to her spot and sat down on the sand carefully. She allowed herself a few moments to rest, checking that she wasn’t getting her freshly cleaned injury dirty again. She used her stone to cleave the stalks of cane into sturdy strips, which she piled beside her on the sand. She then took a few cloth strips and began binding four reed pieces together tightly at one end and stopping at just above half their length. She pried apart the un-tied end and shoved a fiber ball into the space between the four battens. The tension held the ball tightly and she set it aside to repeat the action and the result was three primitive, but hopefully effective, torches. She wrapped the handles in damp seaweed and picked up all of her tools, walking over to the stone outcrop and climbing up on top of it.   
She fashioned more fibers and bark into a shallow nest and began striking bits of flint together trying to get a spark going. It took more tries and more replacement flint shards than she could count before the fibers lit enough to create a small flame… which she immediately snuffed out in her eagerness to light a torch. 

The girl could feel anxiety creeping up as the remaining light from the already set sun seemed to flee across the ocean. If she had been within the forest the darkness would have been complete by now, and she would have been nearly blind and helpless. She managed to get a spark going again and was more careful when lowering her torch to the tiny embers. It took a few seconds to catch but she soon had a crackling beacon at her disposal, the other two unlit torches tucked into her trousers and her shell clamped under an arm. She wasted no time returning to the dense trees and following her path back to her landing site. She walked carefully, knowing that while her torch would deter smaller carnivores like Troodons and Compies that it would also draw the eye of any larger predators out hunting that night.   
She had always made her living on beaches, too wary and ill-equipped to easily handle the dangers hiding in the trees. But it was that naive cowardice what had led to her easy capture and she would not allow herself to be such an obvious target again. Not to mention that if the wyvern was still in that clearing he was likely her best defense against anything that might harm them. As she followed her path of scored trees she allowed herself to take a deep breath, reassured that rest was close at hand. The familiar bend in the stream slowly came into view beneath the glow of her torchlight; the great slumbering dragon had not seemed to move an inch since she had left many hours ago and he didn’t stir when she tiptoed past him with her fiery brand held high. It was still warm at night in this part of the continent so at least she didn’t have to worry excessively about dying from exposure, especially with her shirt now reduced to torch bindings and spare scraps. She briefly regretted not wanting to drag more palm fronds along with her to make a crude pallet but that extra effort had seemed too daunting on top of everything else. She spent some time eating her fill again from the berry bushes and did her best to ignore her continued thirst as she snuffed out her torch and laid down on some dry mossy turf near the pond, curling onto her uninjured side and resting her head on an arm. Her eyelids shut like lead weights and she didn’t have another coherent thought to spare as exhaustion carried her under to the sounds of insects whirring and the gusting breaths of the nearby dragon.


End file.
